Allen Eskew, a New Orleans architect whose projects have
dotted the cityscape, ranging from the 1984 world's fair and the renovated
Superdome to an ambitious project to provide access to the Mississippi River in
the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods, died early Tuesday at his New Orleans
home. He was 65.

Allen EskewTimes-Picayune archive

The cause of death has not been determined.

A native of Alexandria who never used his given first name --
Ralph -- Mr. Eskew earned a bachelor's degree in architecture at LSU and a
master's degree in architecture at the University of California, Berkeley. He
founded his firm, Eskew+Dumez+Ripple, in 1989, five years after he was the
fair's design director.

Throughout his career, Mr. Eskew never lost what fellow New
Orleans architect Wayne Troyer called his "childlike love of design and how
people inhabit it."

The two met when they worked at the world's fair, when Troyer said
he glimpsed what came to be his lasting impression of Mr. Eskew and his style:
a man riding on the back of an all-terrain vehicle who was "just giddy and
laughing and so excited about the possibilities of things."

The fair drew attention to New Orleans' riverfront, as did
several other of Mr. Eskew's projects: Phases I and II of the Aquarium of the
Americas; Woldenberg Park, a 16-acre space that starts at the aquarium and runs
alongside the Mississippi River; and, most recently, "Reinventing the
Crescent," a plan to develop six miles of the city's riverfront in the Marigny and Bywater neighborhoods.

Mr. Eskew also created a 60,000-square-foot ballroom for the
Ernest N. Morial Convention Center, which had started out as the 1984 fair's Great
Hall.

These were hardly Mr. Eskew's only big-scale projects. He
helped restore the Superdome after Hurricane Katrina ravaged it, and he created
Champions Square, the pedestrian mall adjoining the Mercedes-Benz
Superdome.

On Monday, the night before he died, Mr. Eskew attended a
meeting to work on the $60 million renovation of the New Orleans Arena, said
Ron Forman, chairman of the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District.

Mr. Eskew was "a great master of collaboration," said
Forman, the president and chief executive officer of the Audubon Nature
Institute. "His design was to bring as many people into the room as possible
and listen and work with them and come back with a product that everyone would
get excited about."

Troyer said: "When he spoke, he had resonance. He was
always strategic in how he wanted people to think and bringing them around to
this vision he had. He was always interested in making New Orleans better."

One such initiative involved the post-Katrina rebuilding of
New Orleans. "He probably had more influence on the rebuilding of New Orleans
than any other architect," Forman said.

In addition to working with seasoned professionals on the
Unified New Orleans Plan, Mr. Eskew took pains to be a mentor to younger
architects.

"I would see him around a table with them after everyone
else had gone," Troyer said. "For him, what was important was sitting around
with these young people and mentoring them. These were things he had gone over dozens
of times with other people, but he was willing to take time to bring them
along.

"He was an educator and taught on a daily basis."

Among Mr. Eskew's other local achievements are the
130,000-square-foot addition to the New Orleans Museum of Art; the conference
center and laboratory at the Audubon Center for Research of Endangered Species
in Algiers; the headquarters for the New Orleans Metropolitan Convention &
Visitors Bureau; and St. Martha Catholic Church, the design of which came about
through collaboration with church members.

Beyond New Orleans, Mr. Eskew's projects included the Jean
Lafitte Environmental Education Center in Barataria; the Shaw Center for the
Arts and the Louisiana State Museum, both in Baton Rouge; the Acadiana Center
for the Arts, the Estuarine and Coastal Fisheries Center, and the Paul and Lulu
Hilliard University Art Museum, all in Lafayette; and the South Carolina
Aquarium in Charleston.

"Allen and I would joke about his having no 'off' button,"
said Ray Manning, an architect and frequent collaborator of Mr. Eskew's. "He
was constantly working, not only on the projects he was involved in but also in
the development of his firm and the people in his firm, which carries not just
a local reputation but also an international reputation."

The firm Mr. Eskew founded, which has a staff of 48, has won
scores of local, state and national design awards, most recently a 2012
National Honor Award from the American Institute of Architects for "Reinventing
the Crescent."

In recognition of his work, Mr. Eskew was elected to the
institute's College of Fellows. LSU's College of Art + Design named him this
year's recipient of its Distinguished Alumni Award, and he spoke at the spring
commencement.

"He was a very service-oriented individual," his son John
Eskew said. "He believed . . . that if people set their sights to do things,
they can achieve. They can change their environment.

"He was constantly searching to improve whatever environment
he found himself in. . . . He taught that you could always, with tools and
thought, effort and hard work, improve your environment."

Survivors include his companion, Babette Beaullieu; two
sons, John Eskew of New Orleans and Christopher Eskew of Los Angeles; a
daughter, Alison Eskew of New Orleans; two brothers, Eddie Eskew of Jennings
and Bill Eskew of Baton Rouge; three sisters, Mary Ann Lacy of Atlanta, Sue
Bordelon of Lafayette and Becky Bausewine of Alexandria; and a grandchild.